Trail Blazers will have back-to-back second-round picks in NBA draft

Bruce Ely/The OregonianOwner Paul Allen poses with fans while team president Larry Miller takes the photo after the Blazers' home finale.

The Trail Blazers still have almost four weeks before they know how many first-round picks they will have in the NBA draft, but they learned today where their two second-round picks will be.

Portland will have the Nos. 40 and 41 picks in the second round, the NBA announced today.

The 41st pick -- the 11th of the second round -- is Portland's own pick. The 40th came to Portland as part of the trade-deadline deal that sent center Marcus Camby to Houston. The pick came to Portland along with point guard Jonny Flynn and center Hasheem Thabeet.

The No. 40 pick originally belonged to Minnesota. The Timberwolves traded it, along with Flynn and the draft rights to Donatas Motiejunas, to Houston for center Brad Miller and a future first-round pick.

The league also announced the time, setting and broadcast information for the draft lottery that will determine the first three picks in the June 28 draft. The lottery will start at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, May 30, at the Disney/ABC Times Square Studios in New York and will be broadcast on ESPN.

The lottery works this way: The league puts 14 numbered ping-pong
balls in a machine and draws four. There are 1,001 possible combinations
of numbers, but one is not used, so 1,000 are in play. The team with
the worst record gets 250 combinations,
meaning it has a 25 percent chance of getting the No. 1 pick. After the
top pick is determined, the process is repeated for the second and third
picks.

After the top three spots are determined, the remaining 27 first-round spots will be determined by final 2011-12 records.

The Trail Blazers potentially have two first-round picks -- their own, and the pick they obtained from New Jersey as part of the Gerald Wallace trade-deadline deal. The pick is top-three protected, so the Blazers would get
it if New
Jersey does not get one of the top three picks in the draft lottery.
(If Portland does not get it this year, the pick becomes top-two
protected in 2013, top-one in 2014,
and unprotected in 2015).

New Jersey tied for the fifth-worst record in the league, then lost a drawing with Sacramento to determine the draft order after the first three picks. The Nets' odds of getting a top-three spot and keeping the pick: